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Original poster

This England

90 replies

warofthemonstertrucks · 28/09/2022 10:47

I'm off work, ironically with Covid,and started watching this this morning.

Its actually scary how good the acting is.

And it's a bit triggering-it's bringing back some memories of 2020 for sure. I think some people will find it pretty upsetting.

OP posts:
Cuppasoupmonster · 28/09/2022 10:48

It’s incredible, in my opinion the best acting I’ve ever seen. It’s so incredibly raw and realistic.

What do you mean by reminding you of 2020 though?

Original poster
warofthemonstertrucks · 28/09/2022 11:05

The new thing about the Johnson government during covid I mean. As opposed to This is England (which is also phenomenal) :)

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Cuppasoupmonster · 28/09/2022 11:11

Ahhhhhh! My bad! I was wondering why it brought back lockdown memories Hmm lol!

HairyKnobsAndBroomsticks · 28/09/2022 21:39

Yes I'm loving it, I watched two episodes earlier. It definitely brought back lots of memories.

Also loved This Is England, I love Vicky McClure.

FlyingFlamingo · 28/09/2022 21:49

The actor playing Matt Hancock is phenomenal.

The constant clusterfucks of the last 3 years have made me forget so many of the mistakes that got made so it’s making me angry all over again Angry

Original poster
warofthemonstertrucks · 28/09/2022 22:14

And me. I ended up watching the lot. As a care home manager (both during pandemic and now) the later episodes which focus on that had me by turns in bits and raging again. Very realistic depiction of some of the things my team and I had to do during the pandemic.

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ShootingForTheMoonLandingOnMyArse · 28/09/2022 23:17

It is bloody good but reviews have panned it. Don't know why, Boris's prosthetics are a bit silly and take away from it I think. Couldn't Kenneth Branagh have just put a couple of stone on and used makeup to make himself look like a messy blonde knobhead!

I can't get over the actors they've used for Carrie (is she really that polite to staff?), Chris W, Patrick V, Rishi, Matt H and Dominic Cummings! They have captured them amazingly.

StrawberryPot · 29/09/2022 00:09

I wonder if Boris is watching 🤔 I certainly hope all the people who bought into the, "Boris got all the big calls right" mantra are.

QueueEtwo · 29/09/2022 07:19

I thought it was great, only watched 1 episode so far!

The acting was so good, I was almost feeling sorry for Johnson! 🤣

StrawberryPot · 29/09/2022 08:50

I've reached the point with Lucy Mangan in The Guardian that I know her reviews will never reflect how I feel about a drama/film. Same with This England. She gives it 2 stars and refers to it being 'so sympathetic to Johnson it's bananas'. I've only watched 3 episodes but surely it's anything but? The man is portrayed as the self-obsessed, shallow, unprincipled, moral vacuum that we all know him to be. Wilfully ignoring the inevitable and - again as we all know to be true - following the advice of the last person he spoke to.
She also talks about the sketchy portrayals of people in care homes and members of the public. Again I don't think that's the case - there are some heartbreaking stories and characters in the episodes I've seen.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/sep/28/this-england-review-so-sympathetic-to-boris-johnson-it-is-absolutely-bananas

Original poster
warofthemonstertrucks · 29/09/2022 11:13

The portrayals in the care home parts were bang on. The way the staff talked to and interacted with the residents- totally realistic. I would assume Lucy Mangan has never herself worked in a care home (but I might be wrong Grin)
I found Boris in it sort of likeable in person but obviously glaringly inept at leadership or managing his own life. The loveable rogue that *some people voted for, exposed badly and fatally by the pandemic. So again in that I found it pretty accurate!

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darksideofthemooncup · 29/09/2022 11:31

I'm 3 episodes in and have found it very upsetting. My Dad is in a care home, and my partner is a bus driver and it reminded me of how scared and powerless I felt when it was happening.

Imnotswallowingthat · 29/09/2022 13:01

I have watched all 6 episodes and I mean its easy to blame Boris isn't it, and he does deserve some of the criticism levelled at him.

But if this dramatisation is even only half true then its clear that there were lots of other people who badly let him down. The scientific and data analysis experts were completely wrong about most of the issues in the early days - e.g. saying we were 6-8 weeks behind Italy on the curve when we were less than 2 weeks, saying the doubling rate was every 7-10 days when it was 2 or 3 at most. I'm not Boris's biggest fan but he could only make decisions based on the info he was getting.

For me the people who came out of it looking really bad were the Public Health England management who seemed to do everything they could to prevent other people getting involved who could have helped because they wanted to keep it all "in house". Such as the refusal to let private laboratories do testing analysis because they weren't accredited by PHE which would have massively increased the testing capacity in the crucial early stages.

onanotherday · 29/09/2022 14:19

darksideofthemooncup · 29/09/2022 11:31

I'm 3 episodes in and have found it very upsetting. My Dad is in a care home, and my partner is a bus driver and it reminded me of how scared and powerless I felt when it was happening.

Flowers we should never forget.

Original poster
warofthemonstertrucks · 29/09/2022 14:26

Absolutely imnotswallowingthat- it definitely highlights the failings across the board and the problem that we were totally Unprepared in the first place, due to austerity and cuts to the disaster provision in the preceding years. Lots of mistakes made by lots of people in lots of high positions as well as Boris really.

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TheChosenTwo · 29/09/2022 19:21

Dh suggested we start this tonight, I hadn’t heard about it - sounds like it’s worth a watch. Obviously he’s still waiting for my decision because I had to check MN to see if it was any good before I would commit 😂😂

urgen · 29/09/2022 20:16

PHE were always known to be massively wanting to keep everything in house. They are and still are a complete disgrace.

Aria20 · 29/09/2022 20:18

We've watched 2 episodes so far agree with the comments above at how accurately they have got the characters likeness! Enjoying it but also finding it a hard watch - still can't believe we as s country went through it all.

urgen · 29/09/2022 21:21

Aria. I am on E4. Prepare yourself. It does get upsetting. As someone else said did we really go through this.

VivienneDelacroix · 30/09/2022 22:55

I've just sobbed my way through the last 15 minutes of Ep5. Care home staff are truly wonderful and extraordinary people - they deserve so much more than a clap and Matt Hancock's sodding "Care " badge

PeekAtYou · 30/09/2022 23:01

The casting /acting was incredible. The actors who played characters that we know (Carrie, Rishi, Cummings, Hancock...) captured their mannerisms and speech patterns really well.

It reminded me what a knob Boris is and how he should never have been mayor or PM.

Sunflowers765 · 30/09/2022 23:07

I thought Rishi was so like Rishi that it was actually Rishi!! But some serious continuity issues with Kenneth Branagh's face prosthetics. Sometimes he looked like Boris, other times like he'd had terrible plastic surgery. It was a bit distracting. But it felt like a sort of scary pandemic movie- I found myself thinking crikey this would be really frightening if it actually happened- oh wait- it did happen....

TokyoSushi · 30/09/2022 23:13

Oh I'm pleased I've found you, I have a slot to start watching this tomorrow afternoon!

hennybeans · 30/09/2022 23:27

I've only watched the first two episodes so far. I'm not sure what I think about their portrayal of Boris yet. He seems to be just some bumbling, old fool who just turns up, shakes hands and goes where he's told. I think Boris in real life is probably much more with it and calculating.
The actor who plays Matt Hancock has got his mannerisms spot on. And like a pp, I had forgotten so much of what happened at the start of the pandemic.

dutyfirstselfsecond · 01/10/2022 07:03

I think Kenneth looks more like Stanley than Boris but his acting is good